YouTube star known for pranks claims he was kicked off Delta flight for speaking Arabic

Adam Saleh, a popular YouTube vlogger, says he was kicked off a Delta Air Lines flight on Dec. 21 because other passengers felt uncomfortable that he spoke to his mother on the phone in Arabic. (Adam Saleh via Twitter)

An Arab American vlogger known for his YouTube pranks claimed he was kicked off a Delta Air Lines plane Wednesday morning because other passengers felt uncomfortable that he spoke to his mother on the phone in Arabic — an account that the airline company and at least one passenger have contradicted.

Adam Saleh, a 23-year-old Internet personality, tweeted a video showing him and a friend, Slim Albaher, about to be removed from the plane.

“Guys, we spoke a different language on the plane and now we’re getting kicked out,” a visibly upset Saleh said to the camera. “This is 2016. 2016. Look, Delta Air Lines are kicking us out because we spoke a different language. You guys are racist. I cannot believe my eyes.”

As his video and subsequent tweets went viral, Saleh’s account was questioned by many on social media — even as his agent insisted to The Washington Post that the incident was not a prank.

In the video, as Saleh panned the camera around the plane cabin, a few passengers waved. Several could be heard shouting: “Bye!”

At least one passenger could be seen coming to Saleh’s defense, telling flight attendants that he thought what was happening was “insane.”

“I am upset that that’s happening, really upset,” the passenger said. “Is there freedom of speech? They can speak in whatever language they want to on the plane.”

At first, the airline did not elaborate further, only saying that “a disturbance in the cabin resulted in more than 20 customers expressing their discomfort” and that it would conduct a full review after the plane landed.

Wednesday evening, the airline released a new statement saying that Saleh and Albaher had been “provocative.”

“Upon landing the crew was debriefed and multiple passenger statements collected,” the statement read. “Based on the information collected to date, it appears the customers who were removed sought to disrupt the cabin with provocative behavior, including shouting. This type of conduct is not welcome on any Delta flight. While one, according to media reports, is a known prankster who was video recorded and encouraged by his traveling companion, what is paramount to Delta is the safety and comfort of our passengers and employees. It is clear these individuals sought to violate that priority.”

Anthony Ellis, a passenger on the flight, told The Post that he was seated a row ahead of Saleh and Albaher, and had heard one of them shouting something while the other filmed people’s reactions.

Ellis, who speaks some Arabic, didn’t understand the word — and thought “maybe it was a goof that he was shouting to his friend.”

The two were not acting maliciously, he said, but almost like some students heading to Cancun for spring break would be, Ellis said.

When other passengers told them to stop shouting, however, it escalated. But Ellis said he did not hear Saleh speaking on the phone in Arabic.

“He was never any part on the phone — I would have heard the whole conversation,” Ellis said. “If someone’s being racist, I would stand up right away. In this day in age, you defend each other. It wasn’t like that. I mean, this guy was trying to antagonize people. I think because they made it into such a big scenario, [Saleh] then kind of panicked a little bit.”

Flight-tracking records showed the plane departed Heathrow at 11:03 a.m. local time, about an hour after its scheduled departure. It was scheduled to land at JFK around 2:45 p.m.

Saleh’s tweets were shared tens of thousands of times. Within a few hours, the original video depicting him on the plane had been retweeted more than 300,000 times and #BoycottDelta had become the top trending topic worldwide on Twitter.

On Wednesday, skeptics noted Saleh’s history and cast doubt on his account of getting kicked off a Delta flight.

Saleh started making YouTube videos as a teenager and has since achieved some level of fame as a YouTube star and vlogger. He is known for playing pranks on people, and often those recorded pranks center on the different treatment of Muslims in everyday life.

Saleh and his friend later admitted at least one of their most popular videos, showing alleged discrimination by a New York City police officer, was staged.

“It wasn’t [real], it was a dramatization [of] a reenactment of what happened to us whilst filming in our traditional clothing,” Saleh wrote in a subsequent video apology. “We just wanted to bring awareness to the world that we weren’t going to be treated unjustly.”

Saleh seemed aware of his reputation in a live-streamed video he took at the gate after he deplaned.

“And on my mother’s life. . . . I’ll say it for the eighth time, this is not even over-exaggeration, this is literally exactly what happened,” Saleh said into the camera. “I cannot believe my eyes. I cannot believe what the heck just happened.”

“The only thing I can say is, I would never film a phone video,” he told the Times. “That’s when it’s really serious, and I must film.”

The Times noted that Saleh’s video camera “was in his luggage.”

Rahman said Saleh had stopped over in London to spend a day there on the way back to New York after wrapping up an international trip that started Nov. 14.

On Wednesday morning, Rahman said, he dropped Saleh off at the airport and was later told he had gotten onto the plane fine.

“He always calls his parents every time he flies, just gets their blessing before he goes,” Rahman said. “Somebody shouted, ‘We don’t understand what you’re saying. You’re making us feel uncomfortable.’ It kind of erupted from there.”

In his interview with the New York Times, Saleh said another passenger swore at him and Albaher and suggested they be “chucked” off the plane.

“At this point, me and Slim looked at each other,” Saleh told the Times. “We didn’t know what to do. We felt like we were terrorists.”

Rahman said Saleh called him immediately after he was made to leave the plane.

A subsequent tweet from Saleh — simply titled “Please help us get back to New York” — linked to a Periscope video that live-streamed their phone conversation, Rahman said.

“I swear on my mother’s life they just kicked us out,” Saleh is seen telling Rahman. “This was their reason. They were like, ‘Oh, um, you spoke loud.’ And I’m like, what the hell? That’s your reason? That’s your excuse? Saying that we spoke loud? Then give us a warning if we spoke loud. We’ll say sorry, that’s it.”

Delta airlines just kicked Adam and i off the plane because we were speaking Arabic…

Saleh told his agent that, despite protests from some other passengers on their side, they were made to deplane.

“Everyone in there knew that what me and Slim did was just speak a different language,” Saleh said. “All the racist people in there, they were like, we feel uncomfortable. But since there were like 20 of those racist people, the captain came and he kicked us out.”

On Twitter, Saleh said he had spoken to police at Heathrow airport and been made to go through security screening once more after the incident. A few hours after his initial video post, Saleh tweeted that he had been rebooked on another flight to New York City — on a different airline.

Metropolitan Police Service spokesman Jack Griffith told The Post in an email police were called to Heathrow airport around 11 a.m. local time Wednesday after two passengers were removed from a plane.

Officers escorted the two passengers to the terminal and helped them make alternate travel arrangements, he said.

“They were not arrested and no offenses were disclosed,” Griffith said.

When reached by phone, a Heathrow airport spokeswoman referred all questions to Delta and did not provide further details.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations released a statement Wednesday afternoon saying it was still trying to gather facts about the incident.

“CAIR is concerned about any allegation that a passenger has been removed from a flight for speaking Arabic,” the statement read. “Racial and religious profiling of Muslims, and those perceived to be Muslim, is a real and continuing problem. We don’t yet know whether this case fits that troubling pattern, and are currently trying to determine the facts based on input from all parties involved in the incident.”

The group has reported a growing number of incidents in which a Muslim person is removed from a flight because he or she posed an imaginary threat, dubbing the phenomenon “flying while Muslim.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced last month that it would begin highlighting data on the number of discrimination complaints the agency receives, noting that such complaints against airlines had risen 37 percent in the first nine months of 2016 from the same period last year.

Saleh’s purported encounter Wednesday is the latest in a string of tense, high-profile incidents that have taken place on Delta Air Lines flights in recent months.

In November, not long after the presidential election, a Delta passenger recorded a man standing in the aisle of the plane, shouting about politics. “We got some Hillary b—— here?” he screamed. “Come on, baby! Trump! That’s what I’m talking about. Hey, baby! Donald Trump! He’s your president, every g—— one of [you]. If you don’t like it, too bad.”

The man was allowed to remain on the Nov. 22 flight from Atlanta to Allentown, Pa. But Delta later apologized for the disruption, saying that the man shouldn’t have been able to stay in the plane. The airline told employees that the man “will never again be allowed on a Delta plane.”

In October, Tamika Cross, a black physician, tried to come to the aid of a passenger who had fallen ill on their Delta flight — but was dismissed by a flight attendant who doubted that she was a medical professional, Cross said. Her experience triggered a change in Delta policy.

During a Delta flight on Nov. 22 from Atlanta to Allentown, Pa., a passenger went on an pro-Trump rant that was caught on video. (Facebook/Emma Baum)